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2018/12/31
Looks like the new version of YSFLIGHT is ready for download from Download.com, but not yet ready from the Japanese site. They may be already in the new year's break. I will announce when both are ready.
The following from my bowling practice this morning. My current focus in practice is to find a course quick and keep up with the lane condition. I think keeping-up part went well today, but finding-course part took one whole game. Also the lane condition changes much faster when I am bowling with 9 other bowlers in the league. I need more practices.
Bowling is a very healthy sports. If you bowl five or six games continuous, you'll be soaked in sweat. I do eat junky or fatty food, but I also do exercise.
Thank you for reading YSFLIGHT.COM in 2018. I wish you a happy new year!
2018/12/29
New York Eating and Bookstore Tour
When my wife and I travel, we go to a place with Mitsuwa and Kinokuniya bookstore. We went to San Francisco and San Jose last December. But we flew there as airline passengers and could not bring back fresh food. I wish I had my Cessna 206. This time, we went to Edgewater NJ located next to Manhattan NY across Hudson river by car. I want to fly there some day, but even some instructors don't like to fly there because of extremely busy airspace. I haven't ventured that airspace yet.
The driving from Pittsburgh to Edgewater was smooth and eventless until the very last minute. This one was a close shave. The exit from I-95 was really a first-timer killer. I moved to the right-most lane to get off I-95 near our exit, the last exit before toll for NJ-NY tunnel. Then I realized I was on a HOV lane, which I am not supposed to be on unless our vehicle was carrying at least 3 people. So, I quickly moved back to the second-right lane. Then it turned out I had to be on the HOV lane to get off I-95 before I would be forced to drive into Manhattan through the toll road. I moved back to the right-most lane again, then took the exit. I had to change the lane three times very short distance before taking the exit.
Here came the real fright. Almost immediately after taking the exit, I saw another road joining my lane from the right with no warning. Seriously!? I looked at my side mirror. Nothing. Then my rigorous training from Japanese driving school kicked in, I swung my head back for checking the blind spot. SWOOSH! A white van blazed through my right. Close shave! If I had taken the exit 1 second earlier, I could have collided into that vehicle. There might have been a warning. But, since the right-most lane was an HOV lane, I had to move to the right-lane, then left-lane, and then right-lane again. If the sign was while I was moving to the second right lane, I could have missed it. It was a real first-timer killer.
First of all, the exit lane must not be an HOV lane. HOV must end reasonably before the exit. Then if another road is joining the exit ramp, make one of them priority one of them must be either stop or yield. I imagine many first-timer crashed there. Some of them might have lost life. I don't know how long this design flow of the road was left uncorrected, but next time I won't take this exit again. I will take the one before. It might take 5 to 10 extra minutes of driving, but if I die, the time to get there will be infinity.
In fact, there are such defective roads in many places. One of them is I-376 eastbound entrance at Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh. There is a stop sign at the entrance. The entrance ramp is extremely short, and you will need to move two lanes in very short distance. Paths of the cars exiting I-376 will cross your path. I may be fine 99 out of 100 times. I won't take 1% life risk. The entrance must be closed. When you drive from Dayton toward Columbus on I-70 and then enter I-270 northbound, the right-lane will end soon. You see a sign and you can prepare for it. No problem. Then, the left lane also ends with no warning. Worse, the lane is cut sharply like was slashed by a knife. It is also a first-timer killer. My hair raised when I got to that road. Luckily no cars around me, and I was able to move to the right lane without crash. I imagine some first-timers had lost lives there. Those design flaws must be corrected before people get killed. I imagine some people are getting salary from tax money without doing what they are supposed to do.
We arrived at Mitsuwa around 12:30. I had tempura meal at the food court. Hmm, that was nice. Then we stopped at Kinokuniya bookstore. I still buy paper copies. I never pay for DRM-contaminated eBooks. Buying a DRM-contaminated eBooks is not actually buying. The seller has a kill switch that can disable your copy at any moment. It might be good for online magazines or newspapers that you read once and throw away. I rather buy paper copies for those I may read more than once. I don't mind buying any DRM-free eBooks though. I bought some comic books. (Do you know One Punch Man? That's so funny.) We were exhausted from the long driving. We bought some lunch boxes for dinner and retreated to the hotel. We stayed Homewood Suite by Hilton. We used the same hotel back in 2009, and we liked it. The room was so nice, except I got itchy watery eyes and running nose. I first suspected I caught cold, but cold doesn't usually give me watery eyes. It was more like an allergy. Just in case, if it was a cold, I should heat up my body temperature so that my immune system fight back with full strength. I took a hot water bath, and then my nose stopped running. I still had watery eyes, but that was good enough to sleep well.
Day 2. The next morning my eyes were still itchy, but the nose was not running. It looked like my allergy symptom attacked me only when I was in the living room, not in the bedroom.
Anyway, we got out of the room. We took #158 NJ Transig bus to go into Manhattan. Once I release my wife in a Japanese bookstore she doesn't come back for hours. I left her Kinokuniya bookstore in Manhattan (which is bigger than Mitsuwa branch), and hopped on the subway to go to B&H Photo Video. I bought some USB-C to USB 3.0-A adapter. I needed them anyway. Then I went upstairs to try some digital cameras. It is so easy to try a camera before buying at Yodobashi or Bic camera in Tokyo. But, in Pittsburgh, I need to get everything online. I cannot really try it before buying. B&H is one of rare retail stores that I can try many camera moels. (Best Buy? They carry only craps.)
I tried Sony RX10 mk IV superzoom when I was in Japan this summer. I was impressed by the performance, but I didn't have enough time to look into details. I was interested in the image delay in the viewfinder and the blank-image time during continuous shutter. I own Fuji HS20 EXR, which was one of the firsts of the super-zooms. To use a digital SLR, you need to live near Tokyo. Why? I don't hear there was a break through in the anti-dust technology. Only Olympus is serious about the sensor-dust problem. Other companies Nikon, Canon, Pentax are pretending that the problem doesn't exist. Once your image sensor gets a dust, you need to either live with it or send it back to the service center for cleaning. What if you are in the photo trip right in front of the subject and realized your sensor got a big speck in the middle? I am using Olympus E-5 which is extremely resistant to the dusts, but Olympus dropped out of digital SLR business. Current Olympus mirrorless lines don't have a long telephoto lens. I cannot get an updated model of E-5 any longer. What should I do? I am hoping mirrorless cameras eventually catch up with digital SLRs. But, Fuji HS20 EXR was too early. I tried to use it for aerial photography. I was flying a Cessna and tried to take something on the ground with Fuji HS20 EXR. But, the image on the viewfinder was lagged too much, and gave me a motion sickness. (I was not incapacitated. But, I had headache.) I decided not to use Fuji HS20 EXR for aerial photography. But, Sony RX10 mk IV looked to be different. The image delay seems to be very small. This may not give me motion sickness. As I tried the continuous shutter, the image doesn't disappear, but instead the last still image remains on the viewfinder until the next shot. I think it makes it much easier than E-5 when I shoot a high-speed pass in airshows. To cover birds, I want to have up to 800mm, but it extends only up to 600mm. No available tele-converter. Sony might release RX10 mk V eventually. I am keeping eye on it. If it extends up to 800mm, I have $2,000 set aside already.
A USB-C to USB 3.0
Type-A adapter purchased from B&H. Working as advertised.
I spent about 1.5 hours there then I joined my wife at Kinokuniya bookstore. I bought One Punch Man books #9 and #10 that were not in stock at Kinokuniya Mitsuwa branch. Then we walked to Bookoff for more book-shopping. At 4pm, our legs were exhausted, and we headed back to Edgewater. We thought about watching Broadway shows, but all of them were $100 or $200. We decided to eat rather than watching shows.
I bought eye drops at the drugstore inside Mitsuwa and a mask for covering my mouth and nose at a store next to Mitsuwa. I am allergic to some bleeds of cats. Not all cats. My symptom last night was very similar to the one I get when I visit my wife's boss's place, and I am fine if I cover my mouth and nose. I wore the mask and applied eye drops in hotel, and I didn't suffer from the allergy this night.f
Day 3. I forgot wearing a mask after washing my face. Soon my eyes got itchy and I started sneezing. I put my mask on to prevent the symptom from growing further. We headed for Manhattan in #185 bus again. From the bus terminal, we walked about 10 minutes to get to Intrepid Sea Air Space museum. We had been there at least twice, but we haven't come after they got a space shuttle. The museum also has Concorde G-BOAD. It is always nice to watch a Concorde. What I don't like about their Concorde display is the aircraft is left outside and exposed to the ocean breeze. If someone decided to restore a Concorde back to flyable condition, this one probably can be as good as parts supply.
We got to the museum, but what we saw was an extremely long line not moving at all. We never saw that long line at Intrepid. It would take a whole day to get in to the museum. We gave up. That's why you shouldn't buy a pre-purchase discount ticket before visiting New York. You may need to throw it away. At least I could see the Concorde from outside though.
Intrepid.
An impossible
waiting line.
Concorde G-BOAD from
outside of the museum.
If you haven't
tasted Mont Blanc cake, you should.
Then we walked to Rockefeller Plaza to see a huge Christmas Tree. We had to swim through an ocean of people. I don't know what was going on. It was much less people when we visited there in 2009. At least we saw the tree though.
My wife wanted to spend some more time in Bookoff, which was less than 10-minute walk from there. I was just browsing Golgo 13 in the basement. My wife was looking for some books that she can use for her Japanese-teaching material. We left Bookoff, and had late lunch at Cafe Zaiya. All those Japanese bookstore, used-book store, and Japanese cafe are within walking distance from the bus terminal. My wife did some more shopping while I was waiting in Kinokuniya. We returned to Edgewater around 7pm. Our legs were hurting from long walking and standing.
So, we just shopped and ate and our schedule in New York was over. That was exactly what we were planning to do.
Day 4. Last year we could not bring back fresh food, but this time we could. We bought two cooler-boxes full of fresh food at Mitsuwa.
Ramen noodle bowls
from Santoka in Mitsuwa food court.
From the last experience we decided not to take I-95 entrance closest to Edgewater. The entrance ramp was extremely short with a stop sign. The ramp was angled exactly at the angle that Honda Fit's left rear pillar blocked my view. The condition was very similar to the Pittsburgh Squirrel Hill entrance, but the traffic was 3 times heavier. I think I had 3% chance of fatal crash. The entrance must be closed before the next victim dies. So we have already decided to skip that entrance. Instead, we stopped at Garden State Plaza mall for the last shopping. There's MUJI (Japanese apparel and stationary store), and Uniqlo (Japanese apparel shop). Once I release my wife to MUJI or Uniqlo, she doesn't come back for hours. That's why I am sitting on a bench and writing this text.
The return trip was pounded by a heavy rain for the first two hours. Then we had to drive through a very dense fog after Harrisburg. Other than that the driving was smooth, except several drivers tried to kill us by changing the lane without checking the blind spot. We got home safely about 10:30pm.
2018/12/23
I have uploaded the new version of YSFLIGHT to upload.com. It should be available soon from download.dom.
FM-7 RS232C Expansion Card Project
I don't know how many of you are interested in classic Japanese computers. But, if you do, you may know about FM-7. FM-7 is often on sale on Yahoo auction. It is relatively easy to get a working unit from Yahoo auction via buyee.jp.
To set it up, you need to jump through several hoops. Hooking up to a monitor. Finding a keyboard if your unit didn't come with a keyboard. One of those hoops is how to transfer data to/from a Windows or Mac computer.
If you own a FM77AV40 or newer, you then can write an easy F-BASIC program to transfer program/data from a PC via serial connection.
If you have an older model, a 25-pin serial port does not exist. You may fabricate an audio-cassette interface cable to feed data through the audio-cassette interface. You can use my Disk2Tape utility to convert a D77-format disk image to a series of .WAV files, and then burn a floppy disk using FM77 series computer. However, you need to own a PC with a sound unit that can raise the volume loud enough so that FM-7/77 can listen. My 2008 MacBook Pro succeeded. Dell XPS desktop also succeeded. My ThinkPad X230T and X250 failed. New Dell desktop also failed.
So, even if you set up your FM-7 or FM77AV with a monitor somehow, the unit may be isolated from the outside world, and cannot do anything fun.
If you also find a RS232C expansion card from Fujitsu, you get a connection. However, it is extremely rare on Yahoo auction. Even when someone put it on sale, the price skyrockets, and it is very difficult to win the auction. I mentioned it to Carnegie Mellon Computer Club folks. Then one of them told me it is possible to fabricate an RS232C card if there is a circuit diagram. Well, if they can help, I may be able to do. I started a project to fabricate an RS232C (serial connection) card for FM-7 and FM77AV. (Read more)
2018/11/12
Demosplash 2018 Results
Demosplash 2018 is finally over. I was preparing so hard for this event. It is one of the two events that I can showcase my collection of FM series computers. I have also submitted two programs to Demo Compo competition.
In the Demo Compo competition, my program lost just by one point to the first-place winner, a very impressive Apple II demo. That demo was truely impressive. I'll need to get back to the first place next year.
I am very worried about the recent trend of programming. It is incrementally getting more and more difficult for an individual developer to publish a program. The whole industry is hostile to such individuals. If I want to publish a program, the developer feels a pressure to swear allegiance to a big guy.
Sorry, I only swear my loyalty to FM-7 and FM TOWNS. No thanks.
In this circumstance, Demoscene is a very valuable and important place for an individual and small-group developers to publish a work. (Read more)
COMODO CA agreed to refund
I was worried about my $179 because COMODO CA did not explain at all that they do not issue a certificate to an individual developer until I clicked on the "Place Order" button. I was wondering if a company that runs such a deceptive business practice was really going to refund money, but they got back to me and agreed to refund. I cannot relax until I really see the refund though.
Now, I am looking for a Certificate Authority that is friendly to individual developers. Please let me know if you know a good CA.
2018/11/04
2nd Place in the Retro Demo Competition in Demosplash 2018!
I won the second place in the Retro Demo Competition! Although there were only five entries in the Retro Demo categories. And two of them were my submissions. I barely lost the 1st place by 1 point. It was something like 150 vs. 149 or 149 vs. 148.
But, the Apple II demo that won the 1st place was very well done and entertaining. I'll go back to the 1st place next year.
The movie, binary, and source code of the demo programs I submitted will be posted here soon.
Defrauded by COMODO CA
Nowadays if you download a free program online, macOS or Windows refuses to run. You need to manually and explicitly allow a security exception to run the program. But in the process, you need to click Yes to a threatening warning message telling that allowing this exception would be the end of the world.
I seriously want to digitally sign YSFLIGHT and other binaries before releasing so that you don't have to click Yes to such a doomsday messages. However, I need a code-signing certificate to do so, and getting a certificate is hell expensive. $200 is about the average price for a code-signing certificate for Windows. I have been paying $99/year to Apple. I cannot pay $200 per year on top of it for Windows.
Unfortunately this code-signing is a part of the industry-wide attempt to exterminate free programs. While I understand that there should be a way to verify that the code is written and signed by a trustworthy person, $200 per year price tag for such a certificate just kills free software authors. I am getting small income from YSFLIGHT.COM ads and shareware sales, but overall I am paying more for maintaining it.
I really cannot afford $299 per year ($99 for Apple and $200 for Windows). But, I found an ad from COMODO Certificate Authority advertising $179 per year will cover macOS and Windows. Well, then I can stop paying Apple and get a certificate from COMODO. $179 per year is still a pain, but I can live with it. So, I created my account and paid $179.
To my dismay, COMODO then told me they don't issue a certificate to an individual business owner. To issue a certificate, I need a letter from an attorney, notary, or an accountant, which I cannot afford. I saw no explanation from COMODO that they don't issue a certificate to an individual business owner until I paid $179. For sure I don't see any cancel-order button from my account. I am requesting refund, but I am worried that they keep my account unverified and refuse refund.
I write code as a professional programmer, therefore I totally understand how important the security is. At the same time, as a free-software developer, I seriously believe that a programmer should be allowed to publish programs freely, and the programmer should be allowed to choose to publish as a binary or as open-source. It is very unfortunate and outrageous to me that the industry is so hostile to free-software developers.
I am not saying code-signing is bad. I am saying there should be an affordable code-signing certificate for individual developers.
Now my concern is to get my $179 back from COMODO. $179 is worth for 1.1 hour rental of Cessna. Worth 3 retro-games for my FM-7.
By the way, I decided not to pay $99 to Apple this time.
2018/11/01
I'm going to present two retro demos, one for FM-7 and the other for FM TOWNS. The event will be broadcasted over the Internet. Please join us Carnegie Mellon University, or watch the event from the following URL:
http://www.demosplash.org/broadcast
The event will be Friday 19:00-23:00 and Saturday noon-22:30 in Carnegie Mellon University University Center Rangos rooms.
2018/10/30
Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting
Pittsburgh is known to be a very safe city. Squirrel Hill is one of the safest neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Nonetheless, 11 people were shot and killed in the horrific terror attack last Saturday. The synagogue where the gunman opened fire is less than 10 minutes drive from here. Saturday morning I had an alert from Carnegie Mellon regarding the heavy police activity near the intersection of Wilkins avenue Shady avenue, where the synagogue is located. My wife also got an alert from Carnegie Mellon and Chatham university since she also works for Chatham. Still we had no idea what was going on. We turned the TV on and in about five or ten minutes, the local TV station reported a gunman in the synagogue.
I honestly was worried about this type of terror attack. The current atomosphere, fear, anxiety, and anger, could have been a trigger for such a massacre, especially immediately before the mid-term election.
There was no direct friend or someone who has a direct connection to my friend among victims. However, I recognized Mr. Cecil Rosenthal and David Rosenthal brothers. I saw them very often when I was living in Squirrel Hill. Turned out they were living in the same apartment building where we were living. I didn't notice they were living in the same building because it was a quite large aparment complex. But, I saw them very often around there.
I have rendered a Star of David in YSFLIGHT with Israeli Kfir fighter jets. The flight-record file is available from here.
2018/10/08
When I saw the blog-hosting services, I didn't like it
because of inability to keep a local back up.
Some seemed to be offering a capability of taking a local back up copies, but
then what about restoration? What if they terminate the service? Is
it easy to transfer my blog to a different service? Looked to be hell
difficult.
I didn't buy them. I am
stubbornly using an old-school web site.
When I saw Social Network Services like Facebook, MySpace, and Mixi, I wondered why
people do what they can do with a personal web site with less control.
I also am bothered by the
inability to take a local back up and restoration.
The contents of my web site is mine. I sacrificed money, time, youth,
social life, and hair to learn programming. Why do I have to give away my
contents
and let them make money?
I do have a FaceBook account.
But, I'm using it just as an automatically-updating address book.
When I saw GitHub, I was frightened by every open-source
projects concentrated in one web service.
If I were an evil programmer, here's what I would do.
I would hack into a source repository and then inject a malicious code
into a source code of a very popular software title.
Next time the build from that repo is released, the official copy of the
title will distribute my code for me.
Now everyone uploads code to GitHub, such a hacker knows exactly where to
target. Therefore I am still
stubbornly keeping my own private repository local.
Apparently, someone else does have concern. A famous guy. I 100% agree with the philosophy of the Solid project. https://solid.mit.edu/ (Hmmm, I cannot agree more to their philosophy, but they are hosting the sources in GitHub.) Right now I have problem in how to make my open-source part of my code public. I haven't been able to release them in a timely fashion because I always get higher-priority tasks than making and testing a release package. I rather want to open read-access to my public repository to public. GitHub for sure will host my open-source projects, but I don't want to be a part of the centralization. I'm looking into the Solid project to see if it can solve my problem.
So, I created my POD, but I haven't been able to do anything useful yet. Maybe it does not work with Firefox.
A lucky day
We often hear a story like someone almost boarded a flight that was going to crash barely missed the flight for survival due to an errand, traffic, or something seemingly a bad luck. Some see them as a miracle, but because an airliner can carry so many people, those kind of story should happen from time to time. Probably one or a few passengers are failing to make a flight in almost all of such flights. If it crashes, a few persons 'luckily' survives. Just a statistics. Therefore, statistically I have a same chance of getting that kind of episode. Well, in my case it was not that dramatic, but I was driving to bowling league yesterday it happened.
I saw a few police cars running toward the direction I was heading, so I presumed there was an accident. It turned out the area was flooded. Police car was running there to block the road. It was temporary just lasting about an hour, but I saw several cars towed out of the area. Probably those cars submerged to the engine level and could not run by itself any more. I didn't hear any fatality in the news. I guess people just got soaked and lost their vehicle.
So, if I left home 5 minutes or so earlier, I could have been submerged. But, since the rain was so hard, I called my wife, she is also working for Carnegie Mellon by the way, and offered a ride home before heading for the bowling league. That delayed my departure by 10 minutes. If I hadn't done that, my car would have been towed out of the flooding area. What a luck!
Due to the road closure until the water flowed down to the nearby Monongahera river, I missed the practice shots, and I had to jump in to the first game without warming up. I left three open frames and bowled 169 in the first game, but I was able to catch up the lane condition in the second game, bowled 211. The last game was frustrating, I was leaving one pin most of the frames. All adjustments didn't work. Nonetheless I picked up one 6-7-10 split, and killed my nemesis of no. 10 pin in all attempts. I guess it was my lucky day after all.
2018/09/30
My First Logbook Completed!
I have been fixing YSFLIGHT code cursing macOS 10.14. But, today I took a nice break from a frustrating task and flew from Beaver County, completing my first flight logbook! (Read more)
2018/09/29
macOS 10.14
Looks like I was stepping on another landmine of macOS 10.14, which destroys cached NSMutableDictionary somewhere. I could look into it deeper to pin-point exactly where it is destroyed, but I don't want to waste no more time. My font-renderer was using a cached NSMutableDistionary, but I changed so that my font-rendering function allocates and releases a NSMutableDictionary every time it is called. It is inefficient, but didn't make any visible loss of performance, and works on macOS 10.14.
But, the error was caught during unit tests. I am glad I spent time to set it up.
.... How can I tell if I addressed all undocumented changes in macOS!? I did run my unit tests, but I cannot think my tests cover everything.
Actually, my iPhone 5S no longer charges from PC USB port after upgrading to iOS 12. I need to use a larger-output (like 2.4A) USB charger. I don't think I had a good luck with OS upgrades from Apple this time.
YSFLIGHT
Actually, the fix for macOS 10.14 actually influenced the other part of the code bigger than initially expected. YSFLIGHT is running on macOS 10.14 somewhat ok, but it broke Windows and Linux versions. I think I fixed mostly, and a few more steps to go. But, I'll make another test version before running the pre-release test all over again. I'm going to upload a new test version soon. I wish the new version of macOS hadn't happened.
2018/09/28 Vulkan the future or failure?
The undocumented changes in OpenGL-handling of macOS 10.14 created some extra work for me. I need to modify sample codes for my teaching. Each change is small, but I have many source files. I also need to update explanation on my course notes.
There is no explanation of the changes. If the program is not calling OpenGL functions outside prepareOpenGL and drawRect, it should work fine. Otherwise, the program won't work on macOS 10.14. I can imagine programs registering textures in arbitrary locations. The current official version and the test version of YSFLIGHT does not run on macOS 10.14,either. The new stable version will be out soon, which runs ok on macOS 10.14. I have already fixed my code. YSFLIGHT is running fine on macOS 10.14 running on my mac mini. I originally was planning to push it out by the end of the summer break but couldn't finish pre-release tests in time, and pre-release test is now slowly moving forward. But, it worked out well for macOS 10.14.
But, the removal of OpenGL from macOS is becoming more realistic. To prepare for the transition to Vulkan, I was reviewing my Vulkan test codes that I wrote in July. OK. I was able to do shadow mapping. That refreshed what I studied. I think I can use Vulkan if I choose to.
Yes, I am confident in coding with Vulkan. But, probably only few developers can understand and use this API. Vulkan is an EXTREMELY difficult API. Exponentially more difficult compared to OpenGL. Years ago, we had tough time transition from OpenGL 1.1 regime to OpenGL ES 2.0 regime because ES 2.0 made GLSL mandatory. But, the difficulty of Vulkan is way too much more than that. It requires unreasonably low-level programming and micro-management of GPU. OpenGL somewhat provided the rendering model, but Vulkan gives nothing. Vulkan dumps all the responsibility on the application programmer. Probably less than 1% of the programmers who can write OpenGL ES 2.0 code can develop on Vulkan.
After Vulkan is out, there are so much developers who are worried about the future of OpenGL. Vulkan started as the next-generation OpenGL. It is very much understandable. No matter how loud Khronos shouts that they maintain OpenGL, it is too late to extinguish those anxiety.
I had once used an API called IRIS Performer. I think it was in 1994. IRIS Performer was developed by Silicon Graphics who was the leader in the 3D graphics industry that time. My then advisor wanted to see if IRIS Performer was useful. IRIS Performer was made public when the computer-graphics community came up with an idea of Scenegraph. The idea was that the graphics API can optimize rendering operation if the entire scene structure, rather than a soup of lines and triangles, is registered to the API. But, in IRIS Performer, the registration was difficult like hell. Sure, if I transfer that much rich information to the API, it should be able to fully optimize the rendering operation. But, it was too difficult and impractical. That was our conclusion. Other people soon stopped talking about it, and IRIS Performer was forgotten. Silicon Graphics was wonder-straying off course in developing a scene-graph API, and they then released a new API called Cosmo 3D, which quickly disappeared by itself. Developers lost confidence on Silicon Graphics, and it lost the dominance.
I see so much of similarity between IRIS Performer and Vulkan. Sure, if I go down that low level, I may be able to fully tune the rendering pass for maximum performance. But, virtually nobody will be able to program Vulkan, except handful programmers. People saw IRIS Performer as the next-generation 3D graphics API at first. We thought 3D-graphics then-giant, Silicon Graphics, must have created a very good API. People gave up quickly because it was unreasonably complex and extremely difficult. Because nobody used, people stopped talking about it. It disappeared by itself. My very unscientific survey is indicating that more people are complaining about extreme difficulty of Vulkan than appreciating its performance. If only few people uses it, it would disappear. Just as Silicon Graphics lost trust from developers, people will lose confidence on Khronos. Didn't Khronos learn from the failure of IRIS Performer? .... Maybe young people haven't even heard about IRIS Performer.
As if Khronos totally lost their mind, they started Vulkan Portability Initiative. For many of us, the problem is how we can transition to Vulkan. It is virtually impossible to transition our current code base using OpenGL to Vulkan. It helps nothing about our problem. This portability initiative, for an unknown reason, is done in a programming language called Rust. I've only heard about it. Just skimming the code, I got an impression that it was another lesser copy of C++. New programming languages are irresponsibly created and thrown away. That's a serious problem of computing today. Looks like this portability initiative is not going anywhere. It has been stopping since last year.
The situation, almost 100% re-enactment of IRIS Performer, makes me hesitate to transit my code base to Vulkan. It happened before. I spent quite good amount of time to learn DirectX9, and partially added support in my projects including YSFLIGHT. Then Microsoft dropped the backward compatibility in DirectX10. Learning DirectX9 was made utter waste. I felt so dumb. I'm glad I didn't waste time to learn DirectX10 because Microsoft cut the backward compatibility again in DirectX11. I'm done with DirectX. I don't want to repeat the mistake again. Because at this time I see very good probability of Vulkan to disappear, I cannot invest more time for Vulkan. Well, another reason is it still doesn't run on my ThinkPad X250 and X230T. Is Vulkan cross-platform? No. It's a fake news! There still are very large quantity of Windows PCs that are running on 4th- and 5th-generation Core processors and built-in GPU. Vulkan is failing to reach out to those population.
In my view, there is only one way out for Khronos from the failed attempt of Vulkan. Implement OpenGL on top of Vulkan, release it as a reference code, and maintain it. OpenGL is not that unreasonably crazy low-level as Vulkan. It makes sense to implement OpenGL on top of lower-level API, and it should be very much doable. Of course, the performance will be sacrificed because the GPU and application gets somewhat farther apart by the OpenGL layer.. But, what I am looking for is maintainability and reasonably easy coding. OpenGL, especially 1.1, is so good for quick prototyping. Vulkan is not. OpenGL 1.1 is so nice to get students started. How can I teach Vulkan to my students? It is impossible. I think implementing OpenGL layer on top of Vulkan is the only way for Khronos to re-gain confidence from developers. No matter how much Khronos insists that they continue OpenGL, we won't trust unless they actually act.
2018/09/25
macOS Mojave nuisance
One of my students emailed me saying OpenGL stopped functioning when he updated his macOS to 10.14 Mojave. I was caught by surprise because Apple was stating that OpenGL still functions although it is labeled deprecated. Did Apple break promise again? Is it something I was worried about? I also updated my mac mini and confirmed the problem.
It's already almost one month into the semester. I didn't want to tell all my mac-user students to hold off the OS update or use Linux or Windows at this point. After several hours of investigation, I found that all OpenGL drawing outside of drawRect method of NSOpenGLView are ignored in macOS 10.14. (As far as I tested, all OpenGL function calls outside drawRect and prepareOpenGL look to be ignored.)
For example, your program may be calculating one step of the motion and re-drawing at the end of the same function which is outside of drawRect, then your program may stop functioning in 10.14. Or if you are initializing OpenGL states outside of prepareOpenGL, the state may not be initialized at all. The same limitation used to apply only when NSOpenGLView had a sub-view. But, apparently macOS 10.14 applies this limitation regardless of the presence of a sub-view. I am glad at least I knew about the limitation of NSOpenGLWindow with a sub-view. If I didn't know about it, I could have been in the dark now.
I am teaching an introductory programming. I wanted to avoid dealing with call-back functions, but it looks to be unavoidable. I'll explain in class tomorrow.
I hope Apple to support OpenGL longer, but nobody except Apple employees knows how long OpenGL runs on macOS. How can I teach introductory graphics programming with Metal? Metal is useless unless a student is looking to apply for a position in Apple. If I cover up some hard-to-understand part of Vulkan, I think it is possible to go with Vulkan, but Vulkan has its own problem. Vulkan is still not cross-platform yet. I have three computers home, and Vulkan doesn't work on two of them. It is somewhat understandable it doesn't work on 5-year old ThinkPadX230T, but Vulkan doesn't run on my 2.5-year old ThinkPad X250, either. 3-year old computers are still everywhere. If Vulkan doesn't support 3-year old Intel GPUs, it is not yet eligible to be called a cross-platform. Are they going to ignore 3-year old Intel GPUs? Khronos may say it's Intel's problem, not Vulkan's problem. From the user's and developer's point of view, Vulkan is not running on too many computers no matter whose problem it is. I doubt about the seriousness of the people who are working on Vulkan. Vulkan has a good chance of failing. In fact, it is not taking over OpenGL. It may already be failing. Vulkan gave an excuse to Apple for dropping OpenGL. Other operating systems may follow. Then Vulkan itself may disappear. There is a high probability of programmers' dystopia where no cross-platform graphics API exists.
2018/09/16
FM TOWNS Resurrection Project: Creating an Emergency GUI Boot Floppy Disk with English Localization
For those who are trying to keep or make vintage FM TOWNS in working condition, I made a batch file to create an emergency GUI boot floppy disk.
2018/09/15
FM TOWNS Resurrection Project: Writing a 1.23MB formatted floppy image back to an actual floppy disk in Windows 10
If you acquired a vintage FM TOWNS computer, and if its CD drive is dead, you are left with only one option to start the unit: booting from a bootable floppy disk.
Although it was pretty easy to create a bootable disk image by using an emulator, there was no mean of writing it back to an actual 1.23MB format floppy disk.
So, I made it.
PC-9801 uses the same Japanese-only format. If you are trying to restore a PC-9801, you may be able to use the same method.
2018/09/10
How to bug-fix and build an external SCSI CD driver "CDSD.SYS" for Towns OS
There seems to be more than handful of FM TOWNS are kept in working condition. But, many of them are suffering from unstable internal CD drive. An internal CD drive was what characterized and differentiated FM TOWNS from other PCs. FM TOWNS was the very first computer that equipped a CD drive as a standard device. It was not an option. All FM TOWNS came with a CD drive. Therefore, although you still have an option to boot FM TOWNS from a SCSI HD emulator like SCSI2SD, not having a CD drive is very sad condition for a FM TOWNS.
However, miraculously there are two MS-DOS drivers CDSD.SYS and CDISC2.SYS, which substitutes an external SCSI CD drive to the internal CD drive. But, CDSD.SYS binary is documented as a commercial software, and you cannot download from anywhere. And, there is no place you can buy it any more. In addition, the latest version has two bugs that prevents CDSD.SYS from running on Towns OS (although it is advertised to work with Towns.)
I fixed the bug. I made a work flow to build a binary from the source. So I made it public. I have confirmed it to work with actual FM TOWNS 2MX.
Keep FM-TOWNS alive until the last day of the universe!
2018/08/08
Dragon Slayer
I bought a classic game called "Dragon Slayer" for my Fujitsu Micro 7 from Yahoo auction. There were two versions of Dragon Slayer for FM-7, one in a floppy disk and the other in an audio cassette tape. The floppy-disk version is nearly impossible to find. The one I bought was in an audio cassette tape.
This game was very famous and popular in Japan back in early 1980s. I did play, but it was too difficult for me. I didn't know that the map is connected left and right. To get a sword visible on the right at the beginning, I was supposed to walk left. I just couldn't find a route to get to the sword then.
I bought the audio cassette media not because I wanted to play again, but I was more interested in restoring it to the working condition. Actually, the restoration to the .WAV file was successful with little difficulty. Once restored, I wanted to confirm it is complete, i.e., that I could play through. But, the audio-cassette version has only one map where the disk version has multiple maps. Then came to my mind was an emulator-based PC port called "Dragon Slayer Chronicle". The package included Dragon Slayer, Xanadu, Xanadu Scenario II, and other Dragon Slayer series titles. I purchased it a few years ago, and played Xanadu and Xanadu Scenario II, but I hadn't played Dragon Slayer. The version in the package was from PC-8801 disk version.
So, it already had nothing to do with the original purpose, but I started Dragon Slayer for PC-8801 that came with "Dragon Slayer Chronicle". I have 2D Retromap Tool. Also I can save the state anywhere since this one is emulator-based. I couldn't finish it back then, but I now should be able to play through.
I didn't know how many stages (called Phase in Dragon Slayer) I needed to go through at the beginning. I was guessing it should be somewhere around 10. But, as I finished phase after phase, I encountered a new phase. I couldn't save looking at a hint online, and knew there were 20 phases in total. I nearly gave up.
But, I finally played through the last phase, 20th, or Phase K today. I played through all variations of the maps. Then the game goes back to phase 1 with slightly stronger enemy monsters, but I'm not interested in playing all over again.
It had some element of puzzle solving, also it needs a strategy. Now I understand why this title made such a big hit. Actually, the sequel title "Xanadu" sold a then-unprecedented copies, many users started with Xanadu. I was one of them. I played Xanadu before Dragon Slayer. But, I regretted that I had never been able to finish Dragon Slayer yet. Now I played through PC88 version. I fulfilled another long-unfinished business.
2018/07/14
Vulkan
I've been learning Vulkan API for the last a few weeks. I feel that I have enough knowledge to port YSFLIGHT to Vulkan. When the doomsday comes, when OpenGL is no longer cross platform, I should be able to switch to Vulkan.
That's only if Vulkan gains popularity as advertised. I have a serious doubt if it will be well adapted though. The reason why I am worried about the Vulkan adaption is because it is not taking over OpenGL. It is trying to take over extreme low-level APIs like Direct 3D and Metal. I don't think Microsoft and Apple are happy with Vulkan. Apple is openly unhappy with Vulkan. It also takes over OpenCL, which gives nVidia a reason not to be supportive. If Vulkan takes down OpenCL, and the Vulkan itself fails, nVidia will dominate the GPU processing by CUDA. Those big companies, except Apple, are saying they support Vulkan, but they may just be pretending.
Already I see signs that Vulkan is buckling. Since Apple totally ignored Vulkan, they arranged a deal to get MoltenVK, Vulkan implementation on Metal for Apple platforms, open-sourced. But, it is only a subset of Vulkan. It lacks the Validation layer. Vulkan has too many knobs to control. You cannot tell if you are feeding correct parameters.. The Validation layer will tell you when given parameters are outside of the Vulkan specification. It is virtually impossible to develop without the Validation layer. You may get something working in your environment without the Validation layer, but your program may not work when you take it to another platform.
So what I have been doing is writing code on my Mac mini home, and the next day I test the same code on Windows on my office PC to see a bunch of error messages from Validation layer then only I can correct them. Why can't I debug at home? Because of Intel's reluctance in Vulkan, none of my ThinkPads running Windows 10 can run Vulkan. My ThinkPad X250 is just 3 years old, but it is too old to run Vulkan. In a sense, Vulkan doesn't run on too many integrated GPUs and is nothing cross-platform yet. Since Vulkan runs on those older integrated GPUs on Linux, there is no reason it cannot be done on Windows. I don't know what Intel is holding off.
The shader program of Metal seems to be less capable than SPIR-V. The output from the vertex shader (varying in the OpenGL term) cannot be an array or a matrix. (Come on, Apple!) That is supposed to be a Metal problem, not a Vulkan problem, but MoltenVK inherits the problem since it is implemented on Metal. Therefore, the shader that runs perfectly on Windows may not run on macOS and iOS. Because of this hiccup (plus more hiccups), Khronos is now talking about official Vulkan 'subset'. Aaaagh! What's the point of the standard?
By the way I think GLSL to SPIR-V compiler that comes with the LunarG package has a bug. If I write:
layout(std140,set=0,binding=0) uniform State
{
mat4 projection;
// 16-byte alignment
vec4 lightEnabled;
everything works. But, when I was writing it as:
layout(std140,set=0,binding=0) uniform State
{
mat4 projection;
// 16-byte alignment
float lightEnabled[4];
Everything after lightEnable[0] were zero in my shader. Only lightEnabled[0] receives a correct value from my C++ program. I checked every single line in my code, counted bytes to make sure 16-byte alignment, and could not figure why my shader didn't receive any value after lightEnabled[0]. In a desperate attempt, I changed float[4] to vec4, and everything worked. I found no explanation why vec4 worked and float[4] didn't. I hope it is a bug, not a mysterious specification that nobody understands.
Speaking of uniform, to set a uniform value in Vulkan, you need to first copy values to a uniform buffer, which is supposed to be already in the GPU memory, and then uniform buffer "written" to the VkDescriptorSet, which then can finally be bound to a binding point of a VkDescriptorSetLayout and become visible to the shader program (or pipeline in Vulkan term).
My question: Isn't VkDescriptorSet unnecessary?
Although I "write" the content of a uniform buffer to a VkDescriptorSet, a VkDescriptorSet looks to be just a pointer to a uniform buffer or a sampler. I don't see any point to make VkDescriptorSet an allocated resource. It should be possible to bind a uniform buffer or a sampler directly to a VkDescriptorSetLayout.
In the current version of Vulkan, you need two resources, a uniform buffer and a VkDescriptorSet to bind a uniform. (If you count a uniform buffer and a uniform buffer memory separately, three resources.) Since VkDescriptorSet is no more than a pointer, it should be small enough to be carried in a command buffer. Allocation of VkDescriptorSet is a utter waste. I hope the next version of Vulkan includes a function that directly binds a uniform buffer or a sampler to a binding point of a VkDescriptorSetLayout. For the time being, I allocate a uniform buffer and a VkDescriptorSet always as a pair, and my code looks to be working fine.
Anyway, I am hoping one of the two things to happen: (1) Vulkan gains momentum as promised, or (2) someone writes an OpenGL implementation on Metal (actually there is a commercial library called MoltenGL, but I cannot afford.) If Vulkan gets popular, I'm fine. I can continue coding cross-platform with Vulkan. I have already seen some problems, but it also is free from some OpenGL's problems. First of all, I appreciate its type safety. Every object in OpenGL was an unsigned integer. A compiler didn't catch if I was giving a texture name as a vertex-buffer name. It would take several months to a year to port my OpenGL code to Vulkan if I need to, but doable. Or, if OpenGL continues to be available on Apple platforms, it maintains its value and stay alive for longer period.
My worst fear is that Vulkan fails, OpenGL fades, and no cross-platform graphics API. I might look into Unity or Unreal engine, but those are basically for commercial development. I admire Unity's effort to keep backward compatibility, but still there is a license clause saying I need to pay some fraction of earning when the product is commercialized. Some of my research code have been used not as a consumer products, but as a part of the deliverables for industry-sponsored projects. Of course it is a part of an academic research project, but it is somewhat gray area that I don't want to step into. If I code for an industry-sponsored project using Unity or Unreal, I need to talk to an attorney who is specialized in the intellectual property laws to make sure there is no problem, and I don't have money to do so.
I expect Khronos would say something during SIGGRAPH 2018, which will be next month. I keep eye on what they say.
2018/06/20
FM-7 Resurrection Utility: I was compiling in Debug mode. I re-compiled in Release mode and updated the binary.
Carnegie Mellon University is in summer break. I was visiting Japan after seeing off my students in the commencement, came back, went to Niagara Falls air show, and back in Pittsburgh. I'm going to Dayton Air Show this weekend, but the weather doesn't look to be promising.
Here's one news. I was porting my libraries to Android. Hopefully I can talk more about mobile programming in the spring semester course. YSFLIGHT kernel runs on Android now. It's not quite playable, but I am thinking to make a YSFLIGHT player for running demos and re-playing what you record in a PC. I set my goals of the summer as:
That's what I was thinking to do, when Apple dropped a bombshell.
https://developer.apple.com/macos/whats-new/
OpenGL and OpenGL ES will be unavailable in macOS and iOS in the future OS versions. I was somewhat expecting it when Apple announced Metal. At the same time, I was hoping Apple to maintain relatively higher-level and standard graphics APIs. The expectation was shattered into pieces by this announcement.
Microsoft tried to drop OpenGL in Windows Vista once. Then developers around the world criticized the decision, and Microsoft withdrew the idea. OpenGL is, although officially up to version 1.1, still supported as a part of Win32 API. In Universal Windows Platform Microsoft implemented OpenGL ES 2.0 on top of Direct X and therefore is still part of the Windows API. But, probably Apple won't listen.
At least OpenGL should be available for a while, there is a possibility that YSFLIGHT is not available for Mac and development for iOS suspended at least for a short time.
I'm looking into Vulkan API by the way. One of the big problems of current programming is, in my view, that the graphics API has too much influence on the program and data structures. I see a lot of "to extract the best performance from GPU" while I read through Vulkan documentations and tutorials. Tell you what I want to say to them? "Shut the mouth up." I am not competing a Hollywood movie. I won't need the maximum performance from GPU. I rather want to know cleaner and maintainable way. I personally believe correctness and maintainability is more important than performance.
2018/04/17
RAM Smart Phone Yoke Mount
I have tried RAM X-Grip Smart Phone Yoke Mount. (Read more)
2018/04/07
YSFLIGHT Status
I've been asked when I release the next stable version. Sorry. I haven't been able to take time for pre-release test because I spent too much time for retro RPGs. Actually YSFLIGHT grew feature-rich a lot more than I was originally expecting and it is very difficult to manually test many of these features. So, one of the effort I am doing is to automate such tests. I tried several different ways, but the latest scripting is working nicely. For example, now I can automatically select all of the Simulation menus or I can automatically select all of the default aircrafts and fields in the new-flight dialog to make sure the program does not crash. It is amazing to see my test scripts go through many test items for different versions of YSFLIGHT in a few minutes that were taking more than an hour.
Also I am able to test with some different configurations. The work load for the testing will substantially be reduced if I am able to automate tests of many of the configuration items. But it cannot detect the crash, so I need to be in front of the monitor. That's one of the remaining problems.
Looking back, I have added so many features compared to the current stable version. It is a good time to take time for pre-release test and make it official.
I also spend some time occasionally for at least making YSFLIGHT auto-demo for iOS and Android. But, the major road blocking is I need to set up build separately for those two platforms. I cannot really type "cmake ~/development" to set up build environment.
I had a feeling that I forgot something....
Turned out I was totally forgetting about a meeting.
When I am writing a paper or a code it is too easy to forget about time. Also it is easy to lose track of what meetings I got and what meetings are cancelled. If I muted my iPhone for my class and forgot unmuting, things get out of control.
I'm really curious how other people mage their schedule while writing papers and codes, teaching a class, and attending hundreds of meetings.
2018/03/30
Closing of Forward Lanes
A bowling alley in Squirrel Hill that I have been bowling for nearly two decades closed the door permanently last weekend. According to a newspaper the place had been open since 1924. So, the place had nearly a century of the history. I visited Forward Lanes for the first time in 1998 when I came to Pittsburgh as a Ph.D student. I was not a frequent bowler while I was a student, but after getting my degree and started as a research associate I moved to an apartment one-minute walk from Forward Lanes. Then I started bowling more frequently.
Bowling is only one sports that I can do better than average people. Though I didn't have an ambition to bowl in a league then. I just wanted to stay above average. I often went there alone and bowled eight games in a row for practice. One day then-owner of Forward Lanes saw me practicing and suggested me to join a league. I never knew it was so easy to join a league. I happily joined the Saturday-Night League, then-called Young Adult League. That was I think in 2004 or 2005. So, I bowled in the league for almost 14 years.
Although it was not a serious league at all I was still honored to be the highest-average bowler for several seasons. Recently Forward Lanes started cutting down oil on the lanes and made the condition favorable for fast and power bowlers. No matter what I tried I never gained my ball speed. My ball was hooking too much in the recent Forward Lanes' oil condition and never bowled as good as before. Which was fine. My primary league nowadays is Thursday Bowlmor Classic at Brunswick Zone Playmor Bowl in West Mifflin. This is a sanctioned league filled with serious bowlers. I bowled 259 (625 series) there yesterday by the way. So I do not lose a place to bowl. But, closure of a bowling alley that I had been bowling such a long time made me sentimental a bit.
By the way this is the score from my last game in Forward Lanes.
2018/01/24
FM77AV / AV40 Resurrection Project: Infra-Red wireless keyboard emulator
If you are a classic-computer lover, and if you want to get a FM77AV or FM77AV40 unit from Japan, like Yahoo! Auction, you can often find a unit in a good condition. But, for some reason, most unit doesn't come with a keyboard. In such situations, this Infra-Red wireless keyboard emulator can help. (It is not for FM77AV20EX/40EX/40SX which does not have an Infra-Red sensor.)
2018/01/14
FM-7/77 series resurrection utility
If you happen to own a Japanese retro PC called FM-7/77 series with a disk drive, and your original floppy disk went bad but you have a back up disk images in .D77 format, these utilities might help writing disk image back to a fresh floppy disk.
2018/01/05
Happy New Year!
I was staying in San Francisco during the break, came back in an overnight red-eye flight, and then caught cold.
We were there to eat fresh seafood there. Typical Japanese tourist visiting San Francisco probably would visit more touristic places, but we were there for food. We are living in Pittsburgh and starving for fresh seafood.
I stayed there for four days, and rented a Cessna 172 on the last day to fly a Bay-Tour course with an instructor. I was unfamiliar with the airspace around SFO, and the airspace is much more complex than Pittsburgh. We have Pittsburgh class B and several class D airspaces with good isolated distance. San Francisco area is covered by entwined class B, C, and D airspaces. It would take several flying with an instructor to be confident in such a complex airspace.
Comments are welcome.
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